"So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York," Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don't use this as an excuse to do nothing.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton vowed again Saturday to veto the Republicans massive plan to balance the budget. The House was expected to finalize the budget measure Saturday and send it to the White House.

During his weekly radio address, the president again expressed his concerns over budget expenditures for social programs. "This budget is dead on arrival when it comes to the White House," said Clinton," and, if the price of any deal are cuts like these, my message is no deal.

As Matt Yglesias writes, the term "MediScare" was first applied to Clinton. William Safire wrote "President Clinton [. . .] engage[d] in “Mediscare.” This is his shamelessly demagogic campaign to frighten older Americans into thinking that deficit reduction might soon leave them destitute in the snow, and to bamboozle them with pie in the medical sky." And Bob Dole whined "Instead of working with Republicans and with the Democrats to try to secure, preserve and strengthen Medicare, the President chose to engage in a campaign to scare American seniors. We call it Mediscare! Mediscare! Mediscare! All the ads you see in Florida, all the ads you see in Florida, are negative Mediscare ads!"

Now putting aside the policy merits of Clinton's statements today (and there were none imo, YMMV), it's funny how willing Clinton is to advise other pols to forego political advantages he exploited to the hilt when he was still a pol. I doubt very much he would be saying anything like this if Hillary was President. We all know the whole "elder statesman" thing goes out the window when he's got a personal dog in the fight.

My advice to Dems on Clinton and Medicare - watch what he DID, not what he says now.

said, but it was also the currying to Ryan to let him know what he said earlier, in his absence. Ryan's response seemed inelegant and condescending reminding Clinton that "he knew the math", and allowed Ryan to be the leader before the times (rather than the extremist), taking the courageous step of knowingly "putting ourselves out there."

immediately suspicious of is any symposium, conference, and/or gab session paid for, sponsored and/or organized by the Pete Petersen Foundation. Petersen has a not-so-thinly disguised agenda and that agenda is not about economic or fiscal policy that is going to benefit the average and not-so-average person.

Remember, please, that the Petersen Foundation paid for the staffs and expenses of the Deficit Commission. That would be like the tobacco industry paying for a conference on the "problems" with smoking, or the liquor industry paying for a symposium on the "problems" of alcohol consumption.

In other words, you get what you pay for, and so, Clinton's recent comments were no surprise for me.

Bill Clinton is clearly not ideologically or politically the same person he was in the 90's; I think he's wrong in what he's saying and suggesting now, and it is undermining whatever effort others believe should be undertaken to grow the economy, put people back to work, and secure the futures of our older population. He's entitled to support Obama, he can be a general in the New Democratic Party if he wants, he can believe what he wants about how we should get out of this economic hole we're in, but the fact that his name is "Clinton" doesn't make him right.

At the risk of being overly snarky, it seems like Clinton's time would be better spent getting involved in disaster relief out in the heartland, helping people who have lost everything, and not in being a useful tool in Pete Petersen's mission quest to squeeze every last bit of life out of the old, the poor and the sick.

different---he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars now.
Others disagree, but I find that fact corrupt on its face.
What did he do while in office to merit so much wealth after he left?
Wonder how his investments have done?

... when people have no evidence to support their claims, they phrase their accusations in the form of a question?

All ex-Presidents command huge speaking fees when they leave office. To suggest that they were bribed while in office and promised those fees for acts done in office - with no evidence - is pure speculation.

The system begs for corruption. Since Reagan left office, every incoming President has known that he will become uber-rich after leaving office.
It's simply inconceivable that Clinton, W. and Obama have not even considered how their actions in office might profit them when out of office---you'd have to be a prize idiot to assert that.
By the way, I just read that Congressional stock performance is quite good, so my question about Clinton was not idle.
I would like to know the answer.

simply inconceivable that Clinton, W. and Obama have not even considered how their actions in office might profit them when out of office---you'd have to be a prize idiot to assert that.

... since all Presidents are human. That would be quite different, however, than claiming that they accepted bribes while in office to take some unspecified action/inaction in return for promises of future income.

But the bottom line is that Obama will be rich after he leaves office no matter what he does. He'll be giving $500K speeches world wide until he dies. The idea that he is making policy for that aim is silly.

I also thought it was silly that folks believed Cheney was a war hawk because he would personally benefit. The man was already rich.

This is a silly argument (what president was poorer?) because every president is going to be rich after they leave office, but I am not the one arguing that Presidents are changing national policy to make a buck or two for themselves. I think that is ridiculous. They already won the millionaire game by being elected.

What they do after that they do because they believe it or because they are trying to help others in some way.

For a guy who says we should tax the rich more, he could chip in and not cash those pension checks, if not donate more of his book & speaking money to the treasury.

Bloomberg is a major-league arsehole, but at least he only collects a salary of a dollar for being a major-league arsehole...C'mon Bill, at least before we cut Medicare, forego the pension....you're rolling in it already man.

Ironically enough, we started giving out a pension to former presidents so they wouldn't have to degrade the presidency on the speaking circuit, or by being a pitchman for detergent.

But, BC is paid very big money for speaking engagements and I contend (the obvious) that he's only paid huge money because he's an ex-President.

When Harry Truman left office he had only a very small soldier's pension and a little bit of savings from his Presidential salary. He and Bess moved into his mother-in-law's house. He refused offers from private business because he felt they were only making the offers because he was an ex-President. In one case an insurance company offered $50,000 (big money in those days)which he refused because he knew nothing about the insurance business.

Today a term in the White House is worth a fortune. Hell, a couple of terms in Congress can be parlayed into big bucks.

I can understand the money for Clinton's memoirs (As I recall Truman finally made some money from his memoirs). I believe that's fitting for a former President.

I believe the big money for speaking engagements is opportunistic, sleazy.

That's great for Truman, but I don't begrudge any ex-POTUS the money they can earn from speaking fees after leaving office, particularly after (as in BC's case) many years of earning far less money in the public sector than they would otherwise earn.

What would you have a young-ish ex-President do after they leave office? Open up a solo law practice? Retire and not do anything for 35 years or so?

I imagine the Secret Service logistics alone would prevent an ex-POTUS from doing lots of things, plus the fact that there is something to be said about having once held the most powerful job in the world, no one is going to spend their time working at a soup kitchen.

who started the Carter Center and worked extensively with Habitat for Humanity (including actually wielding hammers, etc). Mr. Zorba has always maintained that Carter was a far more effective ex-President than he was a President.

talk about the height of presumption: imaqine people assuming that grotesquely inflated 'fees' thrown an influential ex-president's way could ever have any influence on his thinking, work and public statements.

that none of those first things happened, they're both being honest, and they're both just wrong.

It's possible that good people you agree with can be wrong on the issues some times. Just because you like Obama doesn't mean he's always right or you should support him on everything he does.

I see no reason why we should be talking about cutting medicare right now. It's bad policy, it's bad politics, and if the Democrats would sit down and $hut up about it, or god forbid start defending it, than it might just be a long enough rope to hang Republicans on.

You want to fix the deficit, raise taxes. Otherwise wait until you elect enough Dems to raise taxes. But you won't elect Dems on the cut medicare platform.

that a sentence or two from Clinton backstage can be misconstrued. Former President Clinton generally is ahead-of-the-curve; President Clinton also is known to exercise personal diplomacy. As for the latter: It is quite possible that one can be solicitous, charming, diplomatic even with one's enemies @dinners, symposia, cocktail parties...personal negotiation & the art of sidebar negotiation ("flies with honey") in order to obtain info, persuasively tone down opposition, etc.

Perhaps, the sky isn't falling after all. Personal history here would suggest Bill Clinton typically advances the position of his party. While political dynamics these days suggest caution is always wise; caution against being needlessly overwrought is equally wise. There are too many unknowns in the what-does-he-really-mean department for this one exchange.

It is quite possible that one can be solicitous, charming, diplomatic ...

A family member(R) tells me that Gingrich has admitted that his caucus stopped allowing him to "call on" President Clinton without backup. Apparently Clinton would charm him into making all kinds of concessions that he (Gingrich) would not have made otherwise.

You and I could agree that pigs have the ability to fly - but we wouldn't be right about that.

Bill Clinton is no longer engaged in the work of governance; he is engaged in furthering the political fortunes of Democrats - he's got the same kind of focus you do - and he does not appear to be in as much touch with the reality that political moves that may help politicians may be based on policy that hurts everyday, average people.

His mistake, in my opinion, is that he has been putting politics over policy; he is hurting more than he is helping.

As for Clinton, he is probably too rich to understand. The people he's rubbed elbows with since leaving office certainly didn't deepen his understanding of society, economics, etc. and anyway he was never what I'd call an actual Democrat.

still think Bill Clinton is/was the bees knees of the Democratic Party/Brand?

I don't think he's changed, I don't think he's got rich and sold out...I think people are taking off their rose-colored glasses when looking at Bill Clinton.

Opening credits of the new "Too Big to Fail" flick...Clinton signing the f*ckin' papers that further enabled the scenario in your excellent analogy...only nice thing you can really say is he charged the ruling class slightly higher vigs for his services.

are only willing to go so far to control actual health care costs. Electronic records and other costs savings Obama promotes only go so far - they will not stop the cost of care from going up by double digits percentages every couple of years, or even every year. If the pols are committed to the for-profit model of health care providers, cuts in benefits are the only other option to save the Medicare system. I don't support cuts, but I think cuts are inevitable.

I'd rather play chicken with the for-profit providers and make them lower their fees, since about half the medical expenses these days are supported by Medicare. Seems to me the providers need the Medicare money to stay in business.

in check by the provider system, so demand will always exceed supply. Expensive medical schools keep the supply of physicians and nurses in check. Could there be more economy of scale in the diagnostic equipment? We'll never know - there is not really an open market in such things. They charge what they want.

certainly better than they are being. I mean it's just crazy how much things go up year to year in the health care field. They are practically the only area of the country not experiencing some sort of wage deflation.

is the role private insurance has played in driving them up, and until you get the private insurance industry under control with strict regulation - or out of the picture altogether - costs are going to keep going up and up and up.

And contrary to those who believe a so-called public option would have helped drive down costs, I'll let the good folks at Physicians for a National Health Program address that - pay particular attention to their second point:

Response by Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler:

The "public plan option" won't work to fix the health care system for 2 reasons.

1 - It foregoes at least 84% of the administrative savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes, which would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. Hence, even 95% of Americans who are currently privately insured were to join the public plan (and it had overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead would amount to only 16% of the roughly $400 billion annually achievable through single payer - not enough to make reform affordable.

2 - A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan - which started as the single payer for seniors and has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs - and a place to dump the unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward the segregation of patients; with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

and see, also:

The option to purchase a public plan within a market of private health insurance plans would merely provide one more player in our inefficient, dysfunctional, fragmented, multi-payer system of financing health care, that is if the public option even survives the political process. It would leave in place the deficiencies that have resulted in very high costs with the poorest health care value of all nations (i.e., overpriced mediocrity in health care).

Those who believe that the people of this nation would have the wisdom to drop their private plans and join the government program are ignoring history. When Congress authorized private plans to compete with our existing public program, Medicare, many enrollees did just the opposite. One-fifth have left the traditional Medicare program and joined the private plans.

So why should we care? Why shouldn't they have the right to choose private plans if they want them? We know that those private plans are wasting money, both in their own costs and the administrative burden they place on the delivery system, but what all too many don't realize is that we are all paying for that waste because of the inherent structural deficiencies in our financing system. Plus we are being deprived of the reforms needed in our health care delivery system that our own single payer monopsony would bring us.

O.k, a guy walks into the doctor's office, hitting himself in the head with a hammer, and says, "Doc, I keep getting these awful headaches." Doc say, "stop hitting yourself in the head with that hammer." Guy says, "Nah, that's not it, got any other ideas?"

Now, if we could just pull our heads out of the sand (or wherever) long enough to look around, what would we see? We would see virtually the entire civilized world providing superior health care to its citizens, at half to two thirds the cost of ours.

So, do we then say, "look there, they figured it out, let's do what they did?" Nah, "we can't do that, some meanies will say nasty things and call us bad names like S..s..so..so...soc......I can't even say it."

Sometimes the truth really, really hurts. We are simply too stupid to deserve the country we inherited.

to Clinton's suggestions on lowering Medicare costs? For example, negotiating drug prices, which Clinton said that medicare pays about 66 billion more, a year, for drugs than if we had bought them from Canada, is this a reduction in cost or a reduction in benefits?

didn't believe in re-importation, or, was it done in order to "buy off" pharma supporters in congress? Also, wasn't he able to get price concessions from pharma, which shifted the cost of medicare part d to the drug companies?

Considering Medicare Part D only spent $63 billion a year in 2010, VA negotiated rates are (IIRC) 40% lower, so $25 billion a year in savings is in the ballpark. Which reminds me...

Medicare premiums total $61 billion a year (roughly $150 a month per beneficiary), if Obama had gone for those pharma savings plus recycled the "$500 billion Medicare cuts" (over a decade) back into Medicare- Obama could have zeroed out the monthly premiums! This would have effectively raising Social Security benefits $1800 a year. I'm pretty sure the Republicans would not have won the senior vote in the midterms by a 21 point margin if he'd done that.http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sGLP4p2hOzcJ:www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7305-0
5.pdf

I don't believe Clinton was referring to just part D, rather, he was thinking of the total drug expenditure cost. As for the VA numbers, we would have to look at the cost of Canadian drugs versus the negotiated price. Even still, 25B a year reductions isn't too bad.

Wow. If they are, I think you should become comfortable with the fact that you will never like any American President and will be angry at the government until the day you die.

Although they lean right and left to some degree, even the most liberal President is only going to be a few clicks to the left of either of those guys. They can't get elected otherwise.

My point: don't get angry when politicians like that decide to ignore you. They know you will never be satisfied under any realistic scenario so there is no reason to listen to you. They will focus on the 85% of the country that they have some chance with and keep it moving, happily hippie punching as they move along their merry way.

not to get angry about things you can't control...or perhaps more accurately, get angry about things you are not willing to do what is necessary to change. I could try to recruit a couple thousand friends and neighbors to help me form a human barricade around the entrance to the NYSE, but I won't...I ain't getting locked up.

But yeah, I do drugs, I smoke cigs, I gamble in square games, and I make less than 100k a year. Me and my government are gonna rarely see eye to eye on anything...they aren't me and mines protection racket.

in order to elect another minor variation on the political status quo?

My problem with Obama is that I think he's too much of a technocrat. Which don't get me wrong, is better than whatever the hell George W Bush was. But "inspirational" and "technocrat" are kind of contradictory.

What I mean is that very wealthy people live in their own bubble blinded to any view of the world beyond their circle. (sorry to state the obvious) Possibly Clinton's been in that class long enough to have grown a set of blinders.

When we hear high income media people who believe the average American makes $250,000 per year it's obvious we have a class of people, people with positions of influence, who are completely out of touch with reality.

the situation with the future of health care costs are more perilous than the 90s. I am not sure you are comparing apples to apples. We new health care costs would become a big problem in the 90s, but it was much further into the future. Baby boomers are retiring NOW. 10,000 every day for the next 20 years. The inflation rate has also been much higher than anyone thought in the 90s (see Medicare Sustainability Growth Rate for example). I do not like the Ryan plan AT ALL, but everyone from Greenspan to Krugman agrees Medicare/Medicaid MUST be dealt with.

Does this completely excuse everything Clinton is saying now? No. But there is a bit of apples and oranges in your comparisons.

...be it the electronic blip kind, the paper kind, the derivative illusion kind, you are ALWAYS talking about apples and apples because money is, above all else, an artificial thing with no value whatsoever in and of itself. It is only how WE decide to value money that changes things. As long as we treat people as widgets, we'll have he same problems over and over. IOW, until we start valuing people over money, which we don't even come close to now, nothing will change.

Money is for the people, not the other way around, but we're stuck in that reverse relationship.

can be given to people for Medicare/Medicaid. Even Krugman would agree with that. These constraints exist whether we like it or not. And we need a solution pretty soon that is fair and adequate.

But this is not my point. Should Clinton have dealt with the health care crisis we knew we had coming in the future? Sure. So should have W. So should the members of Congress during their administrations. But Clinton was President 15-20 year ago where economic circumstances have changed. Clinton can be of one opinion now and have possessed a different opinion 15-20 years ago when economic circumstances were different and not be a hypocrit.

I do not think we can afford either. But defense presents a far different problem than Medicare/Medicaid. Defense is not forecasted to rise anywhere near the way Medicare/Medicaid will. The health care programs will rise based simply on the way they are structured. Defense spending is not the case...it can only be raised if we choose to raise it (which we have over the last 12 years I agree) but the current forecast already has it declining. Dropping spending in this area keeps us in-line with a forecast that is unsustainable.

4. Despite all that, it remains true that defense spending isn't at the heart of the budget issue. The current Obama budget calls for defense spending of 3.4% of GDP by 2016; you can make the case that the number should be closer to 2%. But that's not enough to avoid hard choices about health care and revenue.

If you can't see how it's possible both to believe that we waste a lot of money on the military, and to believe that ending that waste would make only a modest contribution to our fiscal problem, I can't help you.

Should defense spending decline? Absolutely. But since it is already down as a % of GDP and the forecast already has it declining, it is not going to absolve us from tackling Medicare/Medicaid.

but you have absolutely no influence in how moneys are allocated. What you or I think we can afford is irrelevent.

What IS relevent is that the keepers of the purse have no problem funding the undeclared wars. Why is that? What do they know that you don't? What do they care about that you don't?

Instead of always looking at this from your perspective, try sometimes looking from the perspective of those making the decisions. What doesn't make sense to you may make sense with whole other set of base assumptions.

It is the tried and true "watch what they DO not what they say "

But by the way, this cracked me up:

Defense is not forecasted to rise anywhere near the way Medicare/Medicaid will.

In that case it would be, watch what happened, not what they forecast.

I am saying that Medicare/Medicaid must be reformed, and spending on defense does not change that. Whether our political leaders think we can afford defense or not does not matter. Medicare/Medicaid will go bankrupt and will challenge the solvency of America no matter what we do with defense. Even Krugman agrees with that and he is hardly a conservative.

There are 2 types of people that are not: repubs that try to do it without taxes, and those that think we can whistle past the graveyard and not reform them at all. Both are wrong, and you are a part of the latter.

You are basing your snap judgment as an ad hominem attack. Calling me sarcastically a VSP and what you wrote above without merit.

I am basing my judgment on what you wrote. Your first post said this:

There doesn't seem to be a limit to how much money can be given to the undeclared wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

I would change that statement to "There are limits to how much MONEY they'll grudgingly allow to people who need Medicare/Medicaid"

My argument is that health care spending by the government must be dealt with regardless of what we spend on defense. I offer Krugman as support (a nobel prize winning economist who is hardly a conservative or a VSP in jest).

Your answer was was completely irrelevant:

What IS relevent is that the keepers of the purse have no problem funding the undeclared wars. Why is that? What do they know that you don't? What do they care about that you don't?

Instead of always looking at this from your perspective, try sometimes looking from the perspective of those making the decisions. What doesn't make sense to you may make sense with whole other set of base assumptions.

This has nothing to do with the fact that the Medicare trust fund will go bankrupt and take our economy down with it if we do not deal with it. Even the most progressive economists agree with that. You are the outlier.

will take our economy down. Really. Now if you said health care costs you might have a point because that shows the real scope of the problem.

Or if you had said that the Medicare trust fund will go bankrupt [period] you would also have a leg to stand on.

But claiming that Medicare is what will take our economy down is ludricrous. This claim after massive bank fraud, after moving manufacturing overseas, after a massive give away to health care insurers, while implementing what amounts to an austerity program during a period of massive un/underemployment sounds completely inconsistent with other comments that you've made. Whatever.

Frankly, I've grown completely tired of the "what we must do" sort of comments that rely on the O administration doing the right thing. (stipulated: My weariness is not your fault) O will never do that thing. Unless one's opinion of "what we must do" would fit in with the Reagan administration.

Medicare Trustees estimate that the unfunded liability will reach $32.4 trillion, and when estimates are done indefinitely, the figure reaches $70.8 trillion over the next 75 years. That would destroy our economy by itself. Yes, I agree with you it is more healthcare in general than Medicare, but if you could somehow reform healthcare but leave Medicare alone, the above would still bring us down. The op was about Medicare/Mediscare which is why I focused on it.

saying NOW can be excused. In the wake of the New York election and the Senate vote yielding what shout be a fatal blow to the extremist position on Medicare (and Medicaid), Clinton's comments brought attention to Ryan's concern and courage to tackle this problem. The deflated Ryan was pumped with Clinton hot air.

The only urgency to Medicare cuts was for something to say at the Pete Petersen Foundation-sponsored event for all the serious people, such as Alan Simpson. Yes, Medicare needs attention, but not all attention is the same--this is the time for distinctions to be made, not a public blurring of one way is is good as another.

Medicare will be solvent until, at least, 2024, according to the NYT reporting of the trust fund, and maybe longer if the economy improves. The affordable health care act will wring about $500 billion out of Medicare and pilot projects are underway with more to come so as to figure out the best way to proceed.

As for social security, all federal programs should be in as good shape as social security, and there is no good non-ideological reason that it should be a part of deficit reduction discussions at this time.

Is not very comforting - especially to those of us who will be getting close to Medicare age, but not close enough.

What's wrong with being honest and saying, "I hope the Democrats don't sit on their a$$es and do nothing"? (Something they are very good at). Why shouldn't we expect that the Dems will look for a way to strengthen it and make it solvent past 2024?

discussed as ways to strengthen the program involve making the people who use it pay more of the cost, means-testing it so more people won't qualify for the benefit, and reducing the reimbursement rates to providers. These are ways to kill the program - and probably contribute to the deaths of more than a few people - not strengthen it, and the precedent will be set to do it again the next time someone decides the program isn't strong enough. And, what are the chances that "again" comes a lot sooner than "anyone could have anticipated?"

No one seems to be doing much talking about the fact that if more people were working, there would be more money going into Medicare - every person who loses a job is one less person contributing to the fund.

But, no - we have no jobs program, and the austerity program that is getting underway is not going to create any jobs - it's going to send us deeper into economic hell.

I'm glad to run into both of your comments. I've been reading this thread with my mouth hanging open in astonishment.

Firstly, Bill Clinton is always, always friendly to political opponents and looks for ways to say friendly things to them. So he was nice to Paul Ryan. Big whoop. That's who BC is.

More importantly, he's totally right that Medicare is a big, big problem that has to be tackled in some way, and soon. I, too, hope the fact that the Ryan plan went down in flames in the Senate doesn't mean the end of the discussion about what the ** to do about shoring it up.

And yeah, I'm also waiting to hear a high-profile liberal Democratic proposal for what to do. So far, I haven't heard one, and that makes me worried.

"Obama has been extremely fortunate: My research (PDF) on presidential scandals shows that few presidents avoid scandal for as long as he has. In the 1977-2008 period, the longest that a president has gone without having a scandal featured in a front-page Washington Post article is 34 months - the period between when President Bush took office in January 2001 and the Valerie Plame scandal in October 2003. Obama has already made it almost as long despite the lack of a comparable event to the September 11 terrorist attacks."

actually could be doing it now. They could be investigating Obama's house purchase or something. What you don't realize is that they don't need a basis in reality to do this. Look at how long they spent on Whitewater making stuff up.

They know that Obama can be rolled and so far unemployment is so high that they're probably not going to need to produce scandals to help themselves.

will look for ways to address Medicare, but first things first. We will need to have Medicare in order to strengthen it. In fourteen years that can be done. With elimination of Medicare Advantage (not just cuts), changing Part D to utilize fully Medicare purchasing power and to provide incentives for preventative care and drug compliance, we will be on a sound pathway to continued solvency. By the way, in 2024 Medicare is thought to be "running out of money", not having run out of money.

we will not be able to immunize anyone from the cuts. If we act sooner, we can make changes gradually so that those who have organized their lives around these programs will not be impacted. If we wait until a crisis and then act, everyone will have to take the hit immediately.

My problem with the criticism against Clinton is this: it is possible to be against Ryan's plan, but for reform of these entitlements. It is also possible to not take Medicare/Medicaid as seriously in the early-mid 90s, but view it differently now (2011) and not be a hypocrit.

is a respectable period for effective Medicare financial planning, especially given the nature of health care progress. The longer out the projections, the less precise they become. Moreover, even a modest change in the country's economy with improve the forecasts by years.

Several critical steps have been taken as a component of the affordable health care act, and others will assist in addressing Medicare financing. My faith in politicians is not blind, nor is it fanciful--it is anchored in the values of Medicare and, hence, its popularity. Accordingly, it is important that Medicare continue to be valuable, not a program of so few remaining benefits as to become valueless, and, hence, politically unpopular--killing by another name.

Medicare is under attack by Republicans: all Republicans in the House voted for the Ryan Budget and, even after the New York election, 40 Republican senators voted for it. The threat is despite the overwhelming support registered in polls and the evidence provided by the New York electoral results.

Clinton's ill-timed and ill-advised remark elevates rather than lowers Ryan's killing scheme, and rakes up the dirt that should be covering its grave. After a decent interval, constructive discussion of really and truly, strengthening, can begin.

opportunities for expressing solid support for the current Medicare program have presented themselves, and in both instances, those opportunities were wasted. In the first instance, Obama could have acknowledged, in his message congratulating Kathy Hochul on her election, the obvious message the voters sent: don't screw with Medicare. He didn't; instead he emphasized her support for cutting the deficit. Is it any coincidence that Biden's bipartisan group meeting to find a couple trillion dollars in cuts "everyone" can agree on, spent this week discussing Medicare, Medicaid and overall health costs? I think not. Opportunity lost.

In the second instance, Bill Clinton, who is as aware as any politician of the hay that can be made when cameras and microphones are present in an unscripted, "backstage" moment, took the opportunity to give Paul Ryan a "buck up" message, instead of one that would have - again - driven home the point that Democrats are about protecting Medicare.

While Clinton fears people will take the NY victory as permission to do nothing, my fear is that people will dismiss Obama's failure to even mention Medicare and will trivialize Clinton's conversation with Ryan because they don't really mean anything.

It all means something.

We. Need. To. Put. People. Back. To. Work. Millions of people going back on payrolls and sending money to SS and Medicare will go a long, long way to taking these programs off the chopping block - where they should never have been in the first place - but I see little evidence of any effort to improve the jobs situation. This would be the time - it's past time, actually - for the government to spend some money to create jobs and increase demand. Instead, our leaders are pretending that tax cuts and spending cuts will magically make the jobs appear.

I'm tired of these blankety-blank politicians using the terrible economy as an excuse to cut programs that are vital to supporting people hardest hit by economic conditions, while doing next-to-nothing about creating the conditions that will improve the economy.

Jobs are really the number one issue and no one is addressing them. You could say that Medicare only was an issue in NY 26 simply because no one really had any ideas as to what needed doing on the economy.

I know that it may not be fashionable to be trusting. Yet...it does make sense to consider the source/the principal when making an initial judgement about a matter of import. In the situation that is the subject of this thread, a few thoughts: (1) How the Democrats handle & strategize with the apparent advantage handed over from Paul Ryan & the Republican lot ranks, IMO, as a matter of import. (2) In these few days of clear advantage, Democrats seem to be quite uniform in development of a response emulating the Congresswoman-elect Hochul (i.e., Deficits can & must be cut without touching Social Security, Medicaid, & Medicare.) (3) No Democrat is touching that rail...and based on DNC & DSCC ads developing, there is no indication that Dems are or will go anywhere near being even perceived as cutting Medicare. (Once burned, twice shy.) (4) Former President Clinton has a sterling track record in these types of matters, and polite or sweet backstage ambiguous comments do not take away from that earned reputation. (5) One presumption that seems reasonable here is that a person with a proven record on matters Medicare (Bill Clinton) be given the benefit of the doubt without evidence that he will do anything to hinder/harm/cut Medicare.

At some point, doesn't it make sense to trust just a wee bit those who have stood with you politically. Unless, of course, the goal is sainthood.

who is a human being (trans.: not perfect). and the same Bill Clinton who did very good as President for the economy, for diversity, and for international relations. Can you think of any modern day President that you prefer?

Back when Bush enacted his tax cuts, Clinton was all over the country tauting how HE doesn't need a tax cut, how ridiculous the tax cuts are, blah-blah-blah.

When Obama extended them via the deal???? Silence from the Bill Clinton camp. One of the worst economic decisions of our time met with silence from the only independently thinking president of the last 20 years.

Bill Clinton is the typical pol, just like the rest of them. Bunch of corrupt fools, all of them. Fools because how are they going to make their mint when they bring this country completely down to its knees? I guess they're all hoping that they're at the top of the pyramid.

the fact that he gave up even more to cut a deal with the GOP in 1995 (see: "Welfare reform" which much like Ryan's "Medicare Reform" was essentially gutting the program)he probably thought Obama was a shrewd negotiator.

Welfare was a bad program. I had an ex sister in law on it so I know. If it's a good program like SCHIP then I'm all for it but bad programs only HURT the good ones. So getting rid of Welfare was for the most part a good thing.

signature economic/policy achievements (other than the 1993 Budget) are all essentially neo-liberal in their construction I'm not sure why this shocks anyone: deregulation of the finance and energy industries; NAFTA; Gutting Welfare; Greenspan; etc. put it this way looking back on the economic trendline (moving upwards prior to Clinton's election in 1992 and tailing downward as he was leaving office) its hard not to conclude that the "Clinton Boom" was driven by the Tech bubble as opposed to executive action (though I would caution conservatives that Clinton's iniatives including NAFTA and the deregulation certainly helped in the short term).

Frankly if you flip the Clinton and Obama presidencies I'm not sure much changes in either case other than the grounds for impeachment.

is that Obama is to the right of Clinton. It's beyond obvious on that. If you hated Clinton as bad as you say, you should despise Obama for what he has done. You really just don't make any sense but I don't think you're about policy. You're just in love with Obama or something.

Obama's at worst even with Clinton ideologically, and in terms of actually achievements appears to be to the left of the man- instituting regulation and oversight instead of gutting it, passing healthcare reform however muddled instead of getting rolled on the issue, etc.